As this is out of bounds in the Northram thread, I thought I would start one here. My position remains as it did regarding Kavanaugh. These unsubstantiated allegations, if allowed unchecked, will allow anyone’s enemies to destroy them. There must be corroboration or else, IMHO, it is a non-story.
My position remains as it did regarding Kavanaugh. The allegations are serious and should be investigated.
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How do we start the investigation? He admitted that he had consensual sex with the woman. She says it was not. Unless this hotel has cameras in the room (I’m being silly) what next?
Did she tell others about the incident at the time, or shortly thereafter—well before today, in other words?
Did she write about it (journal, blog, what-have-you)?
These would be initial areas of investigation.
I was inclined to give Fairfax the benefit of the doubt, until he essentially accused the Northam camp of causing this allegation to surface.
Now Virginia’s top two officials have spun weird and inexplicable stories in just the past few days about the allegations against them.
Who becomes Governor if both Northam and Fairfax step down?
Did he, though? The only quote I’ve seen from him is “Does anybody think it’s any coincidence that on the eve of my potentially being elevated, this uncorroborated smear comes up? You don’t have to be cynical, you don’t have to understand politics, to understand when someone’s trying to manipulate a process to harm someone’s character without any basis whatsoever.” This sounds more like an accusation against the right-wing website that broke both stories, rather than the Northam camp.
Assuming it hasn’t changed since this FEMA document from 2011, they are followed by:
Attorney General
Speaker of the House of Delegates
then the “House of Delegates convenes to fill vacancy”
The current AG is a Democrat and the current Speaker is a Republican.
According to Wikipedia, it’s Attorney General Mark Herring, also Dem.
The smart money is that video footage of him sacrificing kittens to Satan will surface shortly…
Any bets on whether there’s been any dirt dug up on him? Kirk Cox ® apparently is the Speaker of the House of Delegates.
“currently a candidate for Governor of Virginia in 2021” :dubious:
I don’t see all three resigning and turning the governorship over to an R, no matter what they’ve done.
Obviously if he sexually assaulted someone that’s serious and needs to be looked into, but I can’t shake the feeling this is just gutter politics. I have absolutely no evidence to back that up, and perhaps I’ll eat crow, but all these scandals being dropped right at the most opportune time is leaving a sour taste in my mouth.
There’s a super bullshit narrative that the only two options are:
- Believe all accusations of sexual misconduct immediately and without examination; or
- Dismiss all accusations of sexual misconduct immediately and without examination.
Notice what these two extremes have in common.
In all cases, serious accusations merit examination. Some things that can make an allegation seem more credible:
- If they concern events years past, the allegations were made in private at some significant remove from the first time they were made in public.
- The person who makes them comes forward.
- There are multiple, independent allegations.
- There is some sort of corroborating physical evidence.
Before an allegation is investigated, the main thing that should happen is IT SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED. Washington Post reporters investigated this allegation, at the height of the #MeToo movement, around the time they were dropping stories about Al Franken’s misconduct. There is absolutely no reason to believe that WaPo would softpedal a story like this if they thought it had legs.
But they didn’t run with it:
I’m not saying that this woman is lying, absolutely not. But I’m also saying that this story does not, at the moment, contain enough evidence to condemn Fairfax. And there’s already been some level of investigation.
The woman making the accusation has hired an attorney, and she may be planning to go public. We’ll see what the coming weeks bring.
Any credible allegations should be investigated and not dismissed because of partisan politics.
This happened in 2004 and is only now being brought up? Sorry, but just like Kavanaugh this is just not credible without actual evidence.
Every allegation should be taken seriously and investigated.
The problem is that this type of allegation is all but impossible to corroborate. With the allegations against Kavanaugh, there were disputed details that could be independently verified: the date, the place, the other attendees. Because all of those things were disputed, it was possible that you might find some evidence that would influence your credibility determination.
But that’s not the case here. And, far more importantly, it’s not going to be the case in (I think) the majority of sexual assault/harassment allegations. As I understand the situation, both parties agree that there was an encounter between these two individuals in a certain hotel room at a certain time. One claims it was a consensual sexual encounter. The other claims that it turned into an assault. No one claims that anyone else was there. How could you possibly corroborate it? Analyze her behavior after the fact? Everything we know about sexual assault victims tells us there is no clear expected reaction that would allow us to determine credibility. Demand a pattern of behavior? That would seem to give any perpetrator one free assault (and, of course, discourage victims from coming forward).
This is an issue beyond Fairfax. We don’t seem to know (as a society) how to handle these situations, which are unfortunately not all that uncommon. And I’m not sure there’s a clear answer. I tend to fall in the “tie goes in favor of the accused” camp, but I’m not sure that’s right.
Accounts indicate it was not even reported at the time. As such, like Kavanaugh, it’s very difficult indeed to see this as anything other than a politically motivated hit-job. Has she provided a good answer as to why she didn’t report it at the time?
Jesus. After all this time, and all these discussions, how can you still not understand that society treats women who make accusations of sexual assault like shit, and most women who come forward have their lives considerably negatively impacted? If her allegations are true, then she was probably wise not to come forward at the time, since if she had, there would have been a high likelihood of her entire life being torn apart.
Society treats victims of sexual abuse like shit. This is hopefully starting to change over the last year or two.
This has been explained to you before. What part do you disagree with or not understand?